India Travel

Connaught Place has snack bars for quick stops, and plenty of upmarket restaurants, as well as budget sit-down joints that attract a largely Western clientele. Even if you can’t afford a meal in an expensive restaurant, it’s worth going into air-conditioned comfort and treating yourself to silver-service tea. filter coffee, or a cool milkshake. For patties, sandwiches and take-out meat and vegdishes, head behind the market at the top of Janpath, where you’ll find great snacks at incredibly good value. Several familiar fast-food joints are represented in CP and elsewhere in Delhi and there is a new TCW. CP’s larger restaurants remain closed on Sunday mornings. Food malls are beginning to be fashionable, with the likes of Ditii Ham in south Delhi (see p. 141) and Anarkali Food Plaza, unfortunately located at the sterile exhibition ground of Pragati Maidan (Gate 3), which comes alive at show rime and weekends (5pm-l lpm;closed in winter). The restaurants listed below are marked on the map ot Connaught Place on p.118.

Cafe 100. B-Block, Connaught Place. Ice creams galore, plus pizzas, burgers and fries to take away or eat in (standing) Long lunchtime queues; buy a meal ticket before you reach the counter. Don’t Pass Me By, 79 Scindia House. Friendly, inexpensive and tasty veg and non-veg Chinese restaurant just off Janpath, popular with travellers staying nearby. Go early for full-on breakfasts. They also run a reliable travel service. El Arab, Sansad Marg. Great place for Middle-Eastern dishes on the corner of Sansad Marg and the outer ring of Connaught Place, with prices ranging from medium to high. Tasty hummus, baba ghanoush and Lebanese salads in an excellent-value daily lunchtime buffet. Gaylord, Connaught Place, off Sansad Marg. Originally Delhi’s top nightclub, now limited to serving standard but expensive Indian dishes in plush surroundings lit by glittering chandeliers. Host, F-Block. Air-con relief from the Indian heat, and a good place to sit with a beer, silver-service tea, or strong filter coffee. The standard multi-cuisine, however, is unexciting and meals are overpriced.

Koui!, 2 E-Block, Connaught Place. Fresh, no-smoking restaurant and takeaway serving exclusively south Indian veg dishes, with great dosas, and delicious full thalis (around Rs150) at lunchtime.

Kwality. Regal Building. Sansad Marg. High standards of service and hygiene, with good but unspectacular international cuisine; renowned for its channa batura, a particular speciality of Delhi. National, opposite L-Block, Connaught Place.The best of a bunch of inexpensive sit-down restaurants, with great fiery curries, and an endless supply of chapatis.

Nirula’s, 135 L-Block, Connaught Place. Choose from the downstairs snack bar (serving packed lunches), the Chinese or tasty multi-cuisine rooms upstairs, or sample some of the fifty flavours of delicious ice cream in the parlour. A second branch on N-Block, near the Wimpy, is a popular snack bar with smooth ice-cream shakes.

Parikrama, Kasturba Gandhi Marg. Novel and expensive Indian and Chinese cuisine in a revolving restaurant worth a visit only for the superb views over Delhi; a single rotation takes 100 minutes. Pizza Express,

Connaught Place. An ambience and menu identical with their restaurants abroad, so are the prices, which makes it expensive for Delhi, especially their drinks menu. Rodeo, 12 A-Block, Connaught Place. New-Mexican restaurant with Wild West waiters, crooning karaoke, swinging saddle bar stools, pitchers of beer, cocktails, excellent fajitas and moderate prices.

Sona Rupa, 46 Janpath. Good Indian and Chinese food, extremely popular with families. No-nonsense prices, and dramatic dosa-flinging in the open-fronted kitchen downstairs. Beer and north Indian food upstairs; buy a food ticket at the till and present it to trie cooks.

Spice Route, Hotel Imperial, Janpath. The beautifully decorated and expensive restaurant specializes in spicy Thai and Kerala cuisine and is widely considered to be one of the best restaurants in Asia.

Standard, 44 Regal Buildings, Connajght Place. Close to the Regal Cinema, with two food halls, one for the best-value south Indian thalis in town, and the other for north Indian and tandoori specials and chilled beer on tap. Surang, Aika Hotel. 16-90 P-Block, Connaught Place. A minor treat - delicious tandoori and Mughlai specialities. Vegetarians should try the Vega restaurant (also in the Alkg HoteH, where the purest Indian veg dishes are served with ginger kulcha.

United Coffee House, 15 E-Block, Connaught Place. Together with the Host, this is a long-standing favourite, and does great coffee and cold beer. The food is very good and portions are ample, but as a whole it’s oveipriced.

Zen. 25 B-Block. Connaught Place. Excellent Chinese and Japanese meals served m a leisurely and traditional style, with chopsticks, and Western snacks (3-7pm], Distinctly upper-class, with prices to match, and a selection of wines, spirits and beers.

Within the curved colonial knes of Connaught Place you’ll find moderately priced hotels of varying standards. Further south, grander hotels on and around Janpath and along Sansad Marg cater mainly for business travellers and tourist groups. Most of these have plush restaurants and bars and include meals, and some have pools - all add heavy taxes to their bills, which we have included in our price guide, and many require non-Indian residents to pay in foreign currency, although Visa cards and travellers’cheques will also be accepted. However, the inexpensive lodges, huddled around the north end of Janpath, near the Government of India tourist office, offer dorms as well as rooms, are cramped but friendly, and often full.

The hotels listed below are marked on the map of Connaught Place on p.118 and on the general Delhi map on pp.98—99.

Alka, 16/90 P-Block, Connaught Place. Stuffy but comfortable carpeted rooms, all with TV and a/c, few with windows. Excellent in-house vegetarian restaurant as well as a bar and coffee shop.

Central Court, N-Block, Connaught Place. Large, clean rooftop establishment with nice terraces, although the balcony rooms are very noisy. Gandhi Guest House, 80 Tolstoy Lane, behind Scindia House. Less cramped than some of the neighbouring lodges, with a tiny roof area. Shared baths with hot water in winter.

Imperial, Janpath. Plush rooms in the recently renovated Delhi landmark. Large gardens with palms, a swimming pool plus shops, a beauty parlour. English pub and several restaurants. Rooms start at S205.

Inter-Continental, Barakhamba Avenue. Plush, monolithic hotel with comfortable rooms and all mod cons including a choice of restaurants, bars and a disco. Prices start from $285.

ITDC Kanishka, 19 Ashoka Rd. One of the better government-run hotels in the area. Comfortable but unimaginative rooms on eighteen storeys, all with TV and clean bathrooms. Features a swimming pool, bars and food halls and a rooftop restaurant. Its neighbouring sister hotel, Indraprastha. is shabby.